Almost-2yo done with naps? WWYD?

[mindymom]

My DS is a couple weeks short of 2yo and has been a perfect napper for about the past four months - bink, sippie, bed, sleep. Lately, however, he has started dropping two or three naps a week. On some other days he will quietly entertain himself in his room for two hours before falling asleep, then sleep until 5pm (about two hours) when I usually wake him. He is usually very cranky on days when he does not nap, or when I wake him, and when he does nap he usually sleeps for a good three hours.

My sister says her son did the same thing around the same age and they gave up naps altogether. Is this a sign that he is ready to give up the naps? If I stop putting him down for naps will he adjust and get over the crankiness? Could this just be a phase?

[redvlagrl]

Same thing happened to us at 23 mths. 2 weeks later she was back to napping totally normally and without fuss.

I just kept putter her down at 12.30 and told her that it was sleeping time and I would come back and get her when sleeping time was over. I didn't really care if she slept or not, but she did begin to.

[smlame]

Our dd gave up naps, sort of, around that age too. I think it's normal and it's also normal for it to be a "hard" transition. Some days they still need a nap, some days not so much. And they have to build up to being really okay with going a whole day without a nap. After almost a year of doing some napping and some not (just going with the flow of each day) our now 3 year old is essentially not napping at all and goes to bed nice and early (between 7 and 7:30) and sleeps for 11 to 12 hours. I read somewhere that it really is a process not an event so it just takes time of being "in between" a napper and a non-napper.

And of course, we mamas and papas need to readjust to not getting that break anymore!

[NewMoonMum]

I agree with PP, dropping the nap is a process.
DS is 2.5, and started showing these signs shortly after he turned 2.
What we did was just to continue putting him down, and if he slept, great.
If not, it was his quiet time.
Now we don't even make him lie down in bed unless it's REALLY obvious he needs that nap, which is not very often-not even once a week.
I have him go into his room for "quiet play time" and put up a gate.
Every now and then he'll lay down and fall asleep, but usually he just plays.
Then some days lately, he will be hyper during his quiet time, only to fall asleep in the stroller later, but only for about 20 minutes. I think it's pretty normal for it to take a while for a real pattern to emerge.

[LemonPie]

My almost 2 yo is doing the same thing. Some days she's up all day until bedtime. Some days she's so unbearably grumpy I put her down. Some days she lays down with a pillow and blanket and rests and sometimes falls asleep. If we go anywhere in the car in the afternoon, she almost always falls asleep. I try to time things so that will happen on our way home, and then I can almost always transfer her successfully But once in a while she surprises me and stays awake.

[zinemama]

You can certainly hope it's a phase. But you should be prepared for it not to be. My 2.5yo gave up his nap one day and never looked back. What did I do? Tore my hair (metaphorically speaking) and complained to all and sundry. It's about all you can do.

[swd12422]

Originally Posted by redvlagrl

Same thing happened to us at 23 mths. 2 weeks later she was back to napping totally normally and without fuss.

I just kept putter her down at 12.30 and told her that it was sleeping time and I would come back and get her when sleeping time was over. I didn't really care if she slept or not, but she did begin to.

This was us, too. If you don't want to give up naptime/quiet time just yet, just keep trying, and institute "you don't have to sleep but you do have to rest/play quietly in your room til I come get you" policy. Just stick to the same naptime routine you have been doing (maybe change it up a little if it might help) and keep expecting the nap to happen. He might go back to napping, or maybe it is the end of napping, but you never know. I know if I had just said, "Okay, you seem to be done with napping" my son would have given it up and been a nightmare in the afternoons. He was never a good afternoon napper and would fight sleep even when he needed it. Even now, when he's at my parents' he won't nap or go to bed willingly (he just keeps going with no sign of tiring til he crashes at 10 pm), but here at home he does great.

[Logan's mommy]

Ds2 gave up his naps earlier this week. It had become a process of the nap coming later and later in the day (trying to set a nap time for him is a nightmare, he'll scream and thrash if he's not ready to sleep) and finally he just seemed to stop napping, but is going to bed earlier (a bit of a relief)

[St. Margaret]

Yeah, from sometime before 2 DD went through phases of no naps for weeks and weeks and weeks, then would nap again for months, then off again, on, off... but by 2.5 she was done except for the occassional nap during a big day out (ie disneyland where we'd really make an effort to get her a break, or driving home from a hot, full morning at the zoo, she'd conk, etc).

[gagin37]

ds dropped his nap completely around 22 months, but started dropping down to 3 or 4 a week around 18 months. definitely a process.

[mindymom]

Wow!  Thanks everyone for the replies - I guess I have low internet-confidence and when there were no replies the next day I stopped looking!  Sorry for not acknowledging sooner.

As many of you predicted, he refused to nap off and on for a couple weeks, then went back to napping, and now occasionally drops a nap here and there.  I guess it is the beginning of the end...

[Momma2Gianna]

My daughter is 2.5 years old.  She has started giving up her naps some days per week.  Her regular "naptime" is anywhere from 2-5PM (could be 3-5, could be 2-4, could be 2-5).  Normal bedtime is 8:00PM.  On the days she doesn't nap, I put her to bed up to an hour before normal bedtime, based upon behavior and whether or not she is looking or acting tired.  Sometimes she is good to go til 8:00, and sometimes not.